The Lazarus Vault

XIV

Gornemant can tell I’m on edge. He says I show too much anger on the practice field. When we spar, I fight wildly and lose often, which only makes me angrier. Gornemant thinks it’s impatience. He’s seen it happen to all squires left kicking their heels too long, waiting for their spurs. He thinks I need a war to lift me. But God smiles on his people that year: all Christendom is at peace. I could take the Cross and go to fight for Jesus in the Holy Land, but I don’t have enough money for the journey.

And the truth is, I want to stay in Hautfort. All the hours of drudgery are worth it for my glimpses of Ada. To leave her would be desolation. At dinner, I can stand behind my lord Guy’s table for hours, just to be close to her. If she speaks to me, I carry her words with me like a treasure boxed in my heart. If she ignores me, I despair. I recall everything I have ever said or done to her, wondering what might have offended her. I tear my mind out wondering if she’ll ever forgive me. And the next morning she gives me a smile, or her hand brushes mine as I help her mount her palfrey, and I’m insane with hope again.

I know I’m deluding myself. Ada has no idea: she’d be horrified if she knew what I’m thinking. Neither of us would ever betray Guy: my lord, her master. But I’m trapped in a dream, an enchantment, and for the moment I have no will to break it.

An August day, a cloudless sky. The whole world is limp with the heat. Gornemant had us in the lists all morning in full armour, charging and skirmishing until we were ready to drop. My hair’s as wet as a dog’s; my hands are sticky with the pine resin I rubbed on so my damp hands wouldn’t drop my sword. I stink of sweat, horse, leather and oil. If I don’t cool off soon, I think I might boil away.

I strip off my clothes and dive into the stream by the apple orchard. The first fruits are beginning to ripen on the trees, but there’s no one here to pick them. The labourers are all in the fields bringing in the harvest. Guy’s gone to inspect the new mill he got with Ada’s dowry. Apart from the birds, I might be the only person alive.

When I’ve washed, I haul myself out and lie naked on the grass. The sun dries me quickly; bees and hummingbirds flit about over my head. Black spots dance in front of my eyes.

I’m hungry. I pull on a clean tunic and walk along the stream, looking for an early apple, or perhaps some mushrooms. I haven’t gone twenty paces when I see her, sitting alone at the edge of the water in a plain green dress. I didn’t notice her arrive; I wonder how long she’s been there. Did she see …?

To hide my embarrassment, I study the undergrowth on the far side of the stream. I see a hazel and a honeysuckle, their stems and branches twined and knotted together, and I say, ‘Do you know the story about those?’

She shakes her head.

‘They grew on the graves of Tristan and Yseult. King Mark burned them down three times, but the hazel and the honeysuckle always grew back.’

She rolls over on her stomach and peers at her reflection in the water. ‘That sounds like the end of the story. Tell me from the beginning.’

I might as well not have bothered with the swim. I’m sweating into my clean tunic more than I ever sweated under my armour. I should go, plead some chore that Gornemant has for me. I can’t trust myself.

I sit down on the bank, what I hope is a respectful distance away.

‘Long ago, when Arthur was king …’

The words are a key, unlocking my anxiety. They relax me; I find I can go on. My mother never told me the tale, but I have heard it many times in Guy’s hall. I’m surprised Ada doesn’t know it.

None of the troubadors I’ve heard entirely agreed with each other, and mine is changed again.

‘Tristan was a knight from Lyonesse, who served his uncle, King Mark of Cornwall.

In my mind, uncle Mark is a fat oaf in a vair-fur cloak that leaves powder on the table.

‘Mark sent him to Ireland to fetch his bride, Yseult the Blonde. Yseult was the fairest maid in all Britain.’

From the corner of my eye, I see Ada winding a lock of her golden hair around her finger. Is she seeing Yseult as I do, with soft blue eyes and a dimple on her chin, lying on a riverbank among the camomile?

‘Yseult’s mother was a sorceress. To ensure a happy marriage, she concocted a love potion and gave it to Yseult’s maid for the wedding night. But on the ship from Ireland, Tristan grew thirsty. He found the bottle and thought it was wine; he drank it. Yseult found him in the cabin and asked to share his drink. She didn’t know what it was.’

‘Where was the maid?’ Ada asks archly.

‘The story doesn’t say. Tristan and Yseult stared into each other’s eyes, and at that moment they fell headlong in love. The walls of the boat seemed to melt away and all they knew was each other.’

I don’t know where Ada’s looking. At that moment, I am very deliberately not staring into her eyes. I’m dizzy; the sun is hot on my skin; I drank too much beer at lunchtime. I’m desperate to make her understand, to tear down the cautious walls of protocol and speak truthfully.

Ada pulls the petals off a daisy and tosses them onto the water. ‘It must have been a strong potion.’

‘When they reached Cornwall, Yseult was married to King Mark. But on her wedding night she crept away from the marriage bed to be with Tristan. She had her maid take her place with the King. In the dark, he didn’t know the difference. Before dawn, Yseult stole back.’

‘It sounds horrible. So dishonest.’

‘She was in thrall to the potion. They both were.’ I’m quick to defend them. In the stream, a brown trout noses against the current. He doesn’t move; he barely twitches his fins. I’m the same, forcing myself to be still in the face of the vast currents swirling about me.

‘Eventually, the lovers grew careless. Rumours circulated. King Mark’s advisors went to the king and warned him he was being cuckolded by his nephew. So Mark set a trap. When Yseult went to bed, he had his servant scatter flour on the floor. He thought it would show up any footprints left in the night.’

‘Clever.’

‘Yseult saw the trap and warned Tristan. But his love was so strong he couldn’t resist her. He leaped from the doorway and landed on Yseult’s bed in a single bound.’

‘Was that love?’ Ada’s sceptical. ‘It sounds more like plain lust.’

I blush. I’m furiously aware that she’s far more experienced than I am in this area. Suddenly my story of the lovers seems false, like an ill-tuned harp. Embarrassment ties my tongue. I turn away.

‘Go on,’ Ada says gently. ‘I want to hear how it ends.’

‘In his leap, Tristan had opened a wound he was carrying from his last battle. He cleared the flour, but three drops of blood fell and landed in it. When Mark found them next morning, he had the two lovers arrested for treason.

‘He imprisoned Tristan in a tower on the edge of a high cliff. But Tristan managed to pull open the bars on the window and leap down onto the beach. Because he was innocent, God made sure he was unhurt.’

Ada raises an eyebrow. She doesn’t think Tristan was innocent.

‘His squire found him and fetched his horse. Just as Mark was about to set the pyre under Yseult, Tristan galloped into the courtyard. He cut Yseult free from the stake and pulled her onto his saddle. They rode away into the forest where King Mark’s men couldn’t find them.’

‘And?’

‘And they lived happily ever after.’

She throws a pebble at me. ‘Cheat. That’s not the ending I know.’

It’s not the ending I know either. That has a poisoned wound; Tristan lying in agony waiting for a ship with white sails to announce Yseult has come to heal him; Yseult dying over his corpse as she arrives too late. But I don’t want that ending on a summer’s day that smells of honeysuckle.

I throw the pebble back at her. ‘If you’re the storyteller, you get to choose how it ends.’